We often get asked to make music like Bonobo here at House of Noise so we thought we'd do a little post about the elusive British musician, his style and music making practices.
Who is Bonobo?
Bonobo is the moniker of Simon Green, born in Brighton England in 1976. He's been releasing music since 1999 his debut self-produced album 'Animal Magic' was released on the Tru Thoughts imprint in 2000. He's released 4 albums in total, and numerous other compilation and remix records. Here's the video for one of our favourite tunes "Cirrus":
Bonobo's Black Sands Album
Perhaps his most well-received album was 'Black Sands' released in 2012 on Ninja Tune. Here's a stream of the album in full:
More Music like Bonobo?
Here's a little Spotify playlist we've put together of more music like Bonobo, featuring Amon Tobin, Mr Scruff, Dj Shadow and Lemonjelly:
How to make music like Bonobo
Bonobo likes to use a lot of samples in his music, he started off using samplers before DAW's like Ableton and Logic became more affordable. Here's an excerpt from an interview he did with music radar in 2014:
“I jokingly tell people that I upgraded to an Atari ST. As a computer, it was even older than my crappy PC; but as a music tool, it was a massive leap forward. Cubase, the Atari, a 90-quid Zoom effects unit, a [Roland] Juno and a little Mackie desk. Amon Tobin lived just up the road from me when I was in Brighton, and he eventually gave me his S3000 sampler, which meant I could finally sample in stereo.”
After progressing through Logic he eventually settled on using Ableton, a Macbook Pro, Arturia V Collection, Soundtoys plugins, PSP Vintage Warmer and CamelPhat.
When he plays live though there's more of a band set up, here's a video of him performing at Glastonbury: